﻿EDMONTON -- When her husband left her, Crystal Brooke's world turned upside down.

Left with a baby and a horse breeding operation, she found an unconventional path to success.

The horse-riding, truck-driving rural Alberta woman was named Playboy Miss Social in November 2013.

"I was married for almost seven years and my ex-husband kind of walked out on me out of the blue. I had a big horse breeding operation and a one-year-old child, and I didn't know what the heck to do," Brooke said.

She had to sell the horses from her ranch west of Edmonton and then she hopped on the computer looking for opportunities.

"I just kind of reinvented myself. I sat down at my keyboard and I thought, what am I going to do?"

Brooke, 33, said she'd always been drawn to Playboy, so she took a chance and entered the Miss Social contest - for non-nude, bikini and lingerie shots - alongside 3,500 women from across the globe.

Brooke set up Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts and started getting attention from casting agents last September, when she was flown out to L.A. for an episode of Millionaire Matchmaker.

Two months later, she became the second Canadian to win the title of Miss Social.

"I found that it was a very, very big platform to get yourself exposure. And it did exactly that," she said.

Brooke returned from a photo shoot at the Playboy Mansion Wednesday, and will fly out this weekend to shoot a role in the Fargo TV series.

Her main focus now is to build her resume in the entertainment industry.

"I think that I'm proof - at 32 years old I won and I'm getting work," she said. "So if I can do it, then other people can as well."